Partan Bree: Scotland's Crab Soup, and the Best Use of a Brown Crab

Partan is Scots for a crab. Bree is the liquid something has been cooked in — the same word as in the broth sense of "brie". Partan bree is therefore, precisely, crab soup: brown crab, rice, milk and cream, thickened by the rice rather than by flour, and finished with white crab meat.

It is one of the oldest soups in the Scottish repertoire and one of the least made, which is a shame, because it is the single best thing to do with a brown crab and it costs a fraction of what the same crab would cost you dressed.

The brown meat is the dish

This is the part that decides whether your partan bree is good.

A brown crab gives you two meats. The white, from the claws and body, is sweet, fibrous and expensive. The brown, from the body cavity, is soft, dark, intensely savoury and — to a lot of people — off-putting on its own.

In partan bree the brown meat is blended into the base and the white meat goes in near the end, whole. So the flavour of the soup is brown crab and the texture is white crab, which is exactly the right way round: brown meat carries flavour further than white ever will, and white meat is wasted if you purée it.

A soup made only from white meat is pale, expensive and disappointing. If you are buying picked crab rather than a whole one, buy both meats and do not let the fishmonger talk you into all white.

Rice, not flour

The traditional thickening is rice, simmered in milk until it collapses and then blended. That gives a texture that is silky rather than floury, and it is what distinguishes partan bree from the roux-based bisques of the French tradition and from Cullen skink, which uses potato.

Two practical points: use long-grain rice, not risotto rice, which is too starchy and turns the soup gluey. And watch the milk — milk and rice together catch on the base of a pan quickly, so keep the heat low and stir.

The anchovy

A small amount of anchovy essence, or a dash of Worcestershire sauce, is traditional and does something specific: it adds a savoury depth that stops a milk-and-cream soup tasting flat and sweet. You will not taste anchovy in the finished bowl.

This is the same instinct as the prunes in cock-a-leekie — an old Scottish soup with a small, slightly odd ingredient doing the job that acid or umami does elsewhere.

Getting a crab apart

If you buy a whole cooked brown crab, twenty minutes of work stands between you and the soup.

1. Twist off the claws and legs. Crack the claws with the back of a heavy knife or a rolling pin and pick the white meat out.
2. Prise the body out of the shell — push up on the underside with your thumbs and it comes away.
3. Remove and discard the dead man's fingers, the grey feathery gills attached to the body. They are not poisonous but they are unpleasant.
4. Scoop the brown meat out of the shell. It is soft and comes away easily.
5. Split the body and pick the white meat out of the chambers. This is the fiddly part and a skewer helps.

A large crab gives roughly 200g of white and 100g of brown, which is exactly what the soup wants.

Buying

Brown crab is landed all round the Scottish coast and is one of the best-value shellfish here — most of the catch is exported, which keeps domestic prices reasonable and domestic familiarity low.

Buy it cooked, whole and heavy for its size. A light crab has recently moulted and will be watery. Picked crab meat from a good fishmonger is a perfectly respectable shortcut and is what most people will actually do; pasteurised supermarket crab is a distant third and tends to be all white meat.

Frequently asked questions

What is partan bree?

A traditional Scottish crab soup made from brown crab, rice, milk and cream. Partan is Scots for crab and bree means broth or cooking liquid. The brown crab meat is blended into the base and the white meat added near the end.

Do you need brown crab meat for partan bree?

Yes — it is where almost all the flavour comes from. A version made only with white meat is pale and disappointing. Buy both meats, or a whole crab, and blend the brown into the base.

What is the difference between partan bree and crab bisque?

Partan bree is thickened with rice simmered in milk and finished with cream; a French bisque is usually thickened with a roux and built on a shellfish stock made from the shells. Partan bree is milder, silkier and simpler.

Why is there anchovy in partan bree?

A small amount of anchovy essence or Worcestershire sauce adds savoury depth and stops a milk-and-cream soup tasting flat. It is traditional and is not detectable as anchovy in the finished soup.

What are the dead man's fingers in a crab?

The grey, feathery gills attached to the crab's body. They are removed and discarded when picking a crab — not poisonous, but unpleasant in texture and taste.